Garlic Do’s and Don’t’s

Believe it or not, garlic is easy to grow and tastes much better when you grow it yourself.

I know this from personal experience.

So do yourself a big favor and do a couple of things.

Buy some good garlic bulbs to plant this fall from some place with a lot of different varieties like Botanical Interests (which appears to be sold out of garlic—see you waited too long before you ordered) or Burpee or Johnny’s Selected Seeds (which is close to being sold out).

THEN, listen to the latest podcast episode of The Gardenangelists. We talk about planting garlic, which could not be easier to do. Really. A child could plant garlic.

And to give the “NOTS” equal time, please do NOT do these things.

Don’t buy garlic sourced from China. Don’t buy garlic packaged in a little box. And for goodness sake, don’t buy garlic in a bottle soaked in oil.

Then, DO follow this advice from Anthony Bourdain. “Garlic is divine. Few food items can taste so many distinct ways, handled correctly. Misuse of garlic is a crime…Please, treat your garlic with respect…Avoid at all costs that vile spew you see rotting in oil in screwtop jars. Too lazy to peel fresh? You don’t deserve to eat garlic.”

Finally, do not buy the most garlic-y food you can find in an airport and then take it with you on a plane that is getting ready to take off for an almost three-hour flight from Salt Lake City to Indianapolis. That’s what the guy in my row on the plane did. Whew. I thought it smelled strong when it was in a closed styrofoam container wrapped in a plastic bag. You can imagine what it smelled like when he opened it all and began to eat it after take off.

Don’t do that!

Do grow your own garlic and then use it responsibly.

And come back here to read my blog posts because I learned a lot of fun new stuff about new plants, new products, new people at the Garden Communicators International conference in Salt Lake City that I look forward to sharing with you bit-by-bit.

Oh, and are you on Twitter? Let’s make Twitter a nicer, friendlier place by tweeting pictures of flowers and marking them with the hashtag #TweetYourFlowers. Perhaps that will trend enough that people will notice and smile when they see all the blooms!